


The Other Bookshop

by notastranger



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 11:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20339692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notastranger/pseuds/notastranger
Summary: Agatha Flowers had been the proud owner of Pressed Flowers Books for nearly a decade. The rent in Soho was sky-high, but it was worth it for the foot traffic and the diversity in customers. People of all walks of life passed through her doors, and as out-going and sex positive as Agatha was, she loved helping them find exactly what they were looking for and learning a little bit about them in the process.But in all those years, this was the first time Mr. Fell had ever entered her shop.





	The Other Bookshop

**Author's Note:**

> I went a long way for a dumb joke. I hope folks enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. :)

You meet a lot of interesting people when you run an erotic bookstore.

Agatha Flowers had been the proud owner of Pressed Flowers Books for nearly a decade. The rent in Soho was sky-high, but it was worth it for the foot traffic and the diversity in customers. People of all walks of life passed through her doors, and as out-going and sex positive as Agatha was, she loved helping them find exactly what they were looking for and learning a little bit about them in the process.

But in all those years, this was the first time Mr. Fell had ever entered her shop.

She knew who he was, of course. Everyone on her street talked about the secondhand bookshop with the weird hours. It had been there for centuries, yet some people claimed that they had spent their entire lives in London never once finding it open. There were all kinds of silly rumors that it was a front for the mafia or a secret coven for witches. All Agatha knew, when she first set up shop, was that she would occasionally get the confused customer telling her that they had been looking for a first edition of one of Oscar Wilde’s works, but had a sudden urge for a “bodice ripper” instead.

She had the opportunity to meet the owner about a year after moving to Soho. He was polite, but distant, until she introduced herself as a neighbor and not a customer. Then he was all smiles, inviting her to stay for tea. She dropped by on occasion since, to chat about the foibles of bookselling or her day-to-day life. He was a wonderful listener. Agatha didn’t put much stock in the metaphysical, but there was something very cozy about being in Mr. Fell’s presence, as if an aura of warmth surrounded him. It was like sitting on a comfortable couch, drinking cocoa and reading your favorite book. They’d spend hours talking, although later she’d realize that she still didn’t know a thing about Mr. Fell himself, except his deep love for books, and his interest in stage magic.

(The coin had been nowhere near her ear, but she played along, anyway. He had seemed so happy, how could she not?)

Needless to say, she was surprised to see him standing just inside her doorway, taking a curious look around. She hadn’t seen him in weeks, she suddenly realized. Not since before that strange Sunday in which she had woken up convinced that his bookshop had burned down. She was relieved to find it as intact as ever, although it was closed, and it had been closed ever since — “until further notice”, the sign said.

Maybe he had been on holiday. He looked a little lighter than usual around the eyes, as if some of those worry lines had been magically erased.

“Hullo, Mister Fell,” she called out to him. “Welcome to Pressed Flowers. What’s the occasion?”

He looked at her and smiled warmly. “Hello, Agatha.” As for the occasion, he shrugged his shoulders and swayed a little in place, hands held together in front of him. “Oh… nothing special. I thought I’d finally pay the competition a visit.”

Agatha guffawed. “I’d hardly call us that. I think about all we have in common is D.H. Lawrence.”

Mr. Fell shared in her laughter before turning his gaze on the shelves themselves as he stepped further into her shop. “Oh, it’s, ah, not quite as extensive as I was expecting…” He caught sight of the wall of vibrators and other sexual paraphernalia that covered about a third of her shop and stepped back a little in surprise. “You’re more than a bookstore, I see.”

“Yep,” she replied blithely, ignoring the soft blush reddening his cheeks. This was an _erotic_ bookstore, after all. “I mean, you can find most of this stuff —“ she flung a hand at the book section, “On the internet, these days. Adapt or die, you know?”

“Mmm.” He coughed, looking vaguely disappointed, before squaring his shoulders and soldiering on.

“Looking for anything in particular?” she asked as he walked past her counter.

He paused and rapidly shook his head, the blush growing. “N-no. Just browsing.”

Agatha smiled to herself. Perhaps it had been wrong of her to assume anything about Mister Fell, but his outfit and mannerisms had always struck her as the classic buttoned-up repressed type. Good on him for branching out a little. “Okay. Give a shout if you need me.”

“Certainly, my dear. Good seeing you.” He smiled at her again before migrating towards the bookshelves, cautiously stepping among the stacks as if entering a lion’s den.

Agatha noted to herself, before resuming her cataloging work, that he had headed directly for the non-fiction section.

~*~

Mr. Fell left without purchasing anything. He must have, anyway, because she didn’t see him leave. When she checked on the stacks at the end of the day, she noticed a number of books were missing. Except that they weren’t missing, because when she went through her receipts, she found that they had all been purchased. Huh! Well, she did have that sudden rush of customers in the afternoon, it’s not like she had kept track of everything that had been bought in the moment.

She closed out her till, whistling happily at how far in the black she was today.

~*~

A few days later, a red-headed man dressed like a rock ’n roll reject sauntered into her shop. This man, she was positive, she had never seen before in her life, and yet he felt familiar, as if he had been always lurking around, just out of the corner of her eye.

“Can I help you?” she asked while he meandered around.

He turned his head and shoulders in her direction while the rest of his body remained pointed towards the back of the store. Behind those dark sunglasses, he looked like someone who had seen it all, and yet somehow at the same time, he seemed terribly, painfully lost.

“Uh.” He ran a hand through his hair, somehow not ruining his artfully messy coif. “D’you sell lube?”

“That rack over there,” she said helpfully, pointing to the display behind him.

He turned and stared at the options. He didn’t say anything else, so she went back to her sci-fi dystopian novel. Despite it being Saturday, there wasn’t a single other customer in the shop.

Minutes later, the man’s voice broke the silence. “Oi,” he said, “I have a question.”

She set down her novel and rounded the counter. “Sure. Ask away.”

He didn’t look at her, staring instead at the colorful bottles of lube as if one of them might bite him. “These are flavored, yeah? Do they actually taste like what they say they do? Are they any good?”

She also looked at the lube. “Well, they’re all artificially flavored, so they probably taste like candy more than anything.”

“Sweet?” He seemed to perk up a little at this.

“Er, yeah, but artificially sweet. Real sugar is a breeding ground for bacteria.” She laughed, trying to ease the tense appearance of the man in front of her. “They taste okay. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to put them on a sundae, right?”

The man made some weird sound like he had half a dozen sentences he wanted to say but none of them could get out of his mouth. “Right,” he finally decided on. “Right, right, right.” He hastily grabbed a bottle of strawberry lube, then cherry, and after a moment’s hesitation, watermelon. “Here,” he said, money suddenly in his hand. He held it out to her.

“Oh,” she said, “I can ring you up at the counter.”

He shoved the money at her again and she found herself taking it. It was way too much for three measly bottles of lube, but she was already thinking about what she could spend the extra on, and by the time she looked up again, the man was gone.

She put the change in the till and didn’t think about it again.

At least not until later that evening, when the same man came bursting into the store, his hair messy, but no longer in any sort of artful way, and his expensive-looking black shirt absolutely on backwards.

He zipped over to the display of lube, hastily gathering up a couple more bottles of the strawberry flavor. He slammed a handful of bills onto the counter.

“Um,” she said, but he was already halfway out the door.

“For the record, the watermelon one tastes like _rubbish_!” he yelled at her before disappearing into the night.

~*~

A week or so later, Mr. Fell visited Agatha’s shop again, but this time, he wasn’t alone. That red-headed man was with him, hovering by his side like a slinky, sulky shadow.

They were holding hands. Agatha held back her surprise and a bubbling sort of glee. They were _together_. Oh, how cute! “Hullo, Mister Fell. Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, he’s not my friend.” Mr. Fell smiled, his eyes twinkling. Agatha had never seen him look so happy. “He’s my _best_ friend.”

Behind his sunglasses, the other man rolled his eyes. And his whole head. “That doesn’t even make sense,” he muttered, but Agatha could see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Mr. Fell’s brows furrowed. “Oh… yes, I suppose. If you’re my best friend, you’re also my friend… anyway. Crowley, this is Agatha Flowers, proprietor of the shop and a delightful conversationalist, might I add, and Agatha, this is Anthony J. Crowley.”

“Charmed,” Crowley said flatly, like a teenager being dragged along to a boring grown-up party.

“Nice to meet you,” Agatha replied cheerfully. “Sorry again about the watermelon.”

Crowley made a stuttering noise like a car engine failing to turn over while Mr. Fell’s eyebrows shot up like a rocket. He gave the other man a look so tender that Agatha thought her heart might melt from just being in proximity of it. “Darling.”

“Can we just get on with it,” Crowley hissed through gritted teeth. “We have reservations.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He smiled at Agatha, tapping the counter between them. “We’ll catch up later,” he told her, and she hoped to God that he wasn’t just saying that to be polite, because _damn_ did she want details.

With a gentle tug of Crowley’s hand, Aziraphale led him into the non-fiction section. Agatha pretended to keep herself busy while straining to hear any snippets of conversation between the two.

“Don’t know why we’re even here,” Crowley complained. “You can find all of this on the internet.”

“Yes, but it’s more fun to browse… oh, what about this one? It’s illustrated.”

“It’s illustrated on the internet, too, angel…” Crowley’s voice faded out and there was a long stretch of silence, only broken by the sound of pages turning.

“I thought you might like this one. Is this something you’d like to try?”

“Ngk.”

“Use your words, dear. You know how I feel about enthusiastic consent.”

Crowley’s reply came back as a whisper that reminded Agatha of a hissing snake.

In a short time, they returned with their selections. Agatha found, for some odd reason, that she couldn’t make out the titles, but she rang them up easily enough, and handed Mr. Fell his purchase in a plain brown bag.

“Thank you for my pornography,” Mr. Fell said with an amused quirk of his lips. Crowley groaned audibly and dragged him out of the shop.

Though the words were clearly meant in jest, Agatha couldn’t help but feel like she had just been blessed.


End file.
